Propos d'un Gamin Book

I have weird habit of reading books that were made into movies AFTER I've seen the movies. Dopey, right? I don't know why I love to do this. I guess just to see how it all turns out on the other end.

Anyway, this review is pretty straight forward: "About a Boy" is awesome. Like the rest of Hornby's work that I've read, it's hilarious in such a BRITISH way (so dry, the laughs usually coming from some poor uptight Brit's bumbling embarrassment). I also admire Hornby for writing consistently about men in a very honest and entertaining way.

In this case, he also gets into the mind of the eccentric, troubled Marcus, who's twelve and being raised by a depressed hippy mom who sings earnest folk songs "with her eyes closed" (this most spot-on description of Marcus' mother and uncool people generally comes up often in the book and always cracked me up) beautifully. Marcus is that tragically unhip kid who is completely deprived of television and pop culture. We all know him. He gets beaten up and teased, and his accounts of his life at school and at home (the narration tag-teams between Marcus and Will, the immature, lazy hipster that Marcus adopts as his own) are achingly painful.

This book is readable and touching. Highly recommended.